My family began following the GAPS dietary protocol to help overcome a multiplicity of health issues. Cooking is my passion and I have cooked cuisines from around the world, but cooking GAPS is a whole new challenge.

I feel good, not as tired as I expected to be on no caffeine. I haven't been hungry, though I am obsessed with thoughts about food. Not cravings so much as thinking about what I need to do to prepare for tomorrow. I'm worried about going hungry and having blood sugar crashes, though I haven't had one in ages and with all the fat and broth I'm eating, I don't imagine it will be a problem.

Earlier today I stumbled across this helpful post about preparing to go on GAPS. I managed to do much of what she suggested. I made and canned about 30 quarts of chicken, duck, and beef broth; made a big batch of applesauce, which my kids prefer to cooked apples (though I may try those, too); and pre-cooked 10 pounds of pork sausage patties. I thought patties would mostly be for the kids, but they already came in handy when I need some meat to go with our first soup. Some of her other suggestions I do already as a matter of course: preparing fermented vegetables, keeping two freezers full of meat, and meal plan. It didn't occur to me to stock up on, pre-cook/pre-cut squash or prepare crispy nuts, but I'll probably do that this weekend.

My husband went to Carlton Farms last week and came home with a lot of pork, so here's another pork recipe. We also happened to have a little bit of duck breast prosciuotto left over and I added that to the pot as well.

Preheat oven to 400F. Rubbed pork loin with salt and pepper and place in a roast pan. Cook for 45-60 minutes, until thermometer inserted into center of pork registers 155°F. Remove from oven. At this point, you can cool and refrigerate the loin to use later. When you are ready to make the soup, cut the pork loin into bite-size strips.

Melt cooking fat over medium-high heat in a large saucepan. Add shallots and saute until golden. With the duck broth nearby and ready to pour, add the garlic and ginger to the pan. Saute briefly, just a minute or so, then add a cup or so of broth and scrape up any bits that have stuck to the bottom of the pan. Add the rest of the broth, the apple cider, bok choy ribs and pork loin and bring the pot to a simmer. Cook until the bok choy is tender, then add the leaves and simmer for five more minutes. Taste and season with salt and pepper. Keep in mind that if you will be adding kimchi juice to the soup, it will not need as much salt.

Serve with kimchi or just kimchi juice and add one raw egg yolk to each bowl.

I had an immense piece of celeriac, I'm guessing he was about 4 pounds...almost as big as my 5-year-old's head. This made a half-gallon of very thick pureed soup, which I thinned when serving with more chicken stock and kraut juice.

Mix the sausage, sage, thyme, teaspoon salt, and teaspoon pepper by hand or in a mixer until the ingredients are thoroughly combine. In a heavy-bottomed stock pot, cook the meat over medium-high heat until just browned. Remove and set aside.

Add cooking fat to pan. Saute onions until soft, add celery root and apples and cook briefly. Add enough chicken stock to cover the vegetables. If you don't have enough stock, add water. Bring to simmer and cook for 20-30 minutes, until vegetables are soft. Puree soup with an immersion blender or allow to cool and puree in batches in a blender. Add pork to soup, return to simmer and cook for 15-20 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste, keeping in mind that if you are going to add kraut juice that this will make it saltier.

Lunch: Celeriac-Apple Soup with Pork Patties (cooked for a while, til the meat was softened)

Afternoon Snack: Same as lunch.

Dinner: Same as lunch, plus I added a leftover beef patty and some duck prosciutto to the soup. I made a batch of applesauce and we all enjoyed that immensely.

Before bed, I had a cup of chamomile tea.

When I quit eating gluten in July 2010, I almost immediately felt much better. My brain fog lifted, my aches and pains diminished, the bloat I hadn't even previously recognized went away, my energy increased, the reflux disappeared, but I also went from having normal, formed BMs to constantly loose stools. After months of this, my doctor ordered a stool analysis, which revealed the presence of helicobacter pylori. She gave me some supplements to take, but unfortunately, I constantly forgot to take them and nothing changed. A month or two later, she finally mailed me the report from the company that performed the analysis, and I saw that an important piece of the puzzle had been missing. My doctor had neglected to mention that I also have an overgrowth of candida albicans.

Doing more research on my own, I found that H. pylori resides in the stomach and causes stomach ulcers, not diarrhea. It's also protective against reflux, which I find interesting since I used to have reflux. Perhaps my body allowed it to grow to protect itself? C. albicans, on the other hand, can go just about anywhere in the body, causing a myriad of symptoms, in fact, nearly every single symptom I have. I wish my doctor had told me about the yeast. I'm not sure that I would have been ready to do anything about it any sooner than now, but maybe. (Here's a list of another GAPS person's symptoms, mine is virtually the same, except for the constipation and eye matter. I'll write up my own list of symptoms presently.)

Caffeine could also be a culprit. I didn't have any coffee yesterday and I definitely have noticed in the past that I have to "go" soon after drinking coffee. I also always drink coffee with milk or cream, so that too could be a problem. For now, I'm sticking with the GAPS Intro protocol, albeit interpreted somewhat loosely. Perhaps I should not be eating liverwurst, for instance. It's not in the list of foods for Phase 1, but it's well ground and well cooked meat. And gosh it's good!

I feared that I would be stuck doing the Intro protocol for weeks or more, but I think we'll progress quickly. I already have noticed very minor improvement in my digestion after just one day (trying to find a balance here between TMI and keeping a good record of my progress). I prepared a meal plan for the week, based on Phase 1, but we added raw eggs and ghee to our broth this morning and I think we'll continue with that. So delicious! I'm having a bit of duck broth with raw egg yolk, pickle juice and duck fat now, trying to imagine the cafe that would serve such a beverage. There should be such a place, no?